Cyril Frankel

One of the few “message” films from Hammer tackles the subject of paedophilia in an interesting manner that, despite the seriousness of the topic, still manages to maintain a tense thriller edge. The film’s screenplay is by John Hunter (based on the play by Roger Garis) and opens with two little girls visiting the house of creepy old man Clarence Olderberry Sr. (Felix Aylmer) who gives them sweets in exchange for them dancing naked for him. When the parents – Sally (Gwen Watford) and Peter Carter (Patrick Allen) – of one of the girls finds out about the episode they are rightly furious and take their concerns to the police. Unfortunately, the Olderberry’s are an old family in the town who hold immense power and the Carter’s find themselves up against a town establishment unwilling to believe them and a justice system that is willing to attack and further abuse the victim. John Hunter’s screenplay is commendable and tackles the sensitive subject of child molestation with a high degree of care and restraint and manages the balance between discussing paedophilia and maintaining the thriller dynamics with a skilful touch. In addition to this particular topic Hunter and director Cyril Frankel also manages to squeeze in themes around rich and powerful individuals being able to bend a community to their will and how lawyers are able to manipulate the legal system on behalf of rich clients. This is a lot of meaty substance to squeeze into an exploitation thriller, but Frankel handles it with consummate ease – he adopts a moralistic tone but cleverly avoids the trap of sermonising or overdramatising. He manages to develop a cloying atmosphere and is helped by some great production design with Pinewood being cleverly transformed into a Canadian town where the story is located. The great Freddie Francis provides first rate black-and-white photography and Elisabeth Lutyens delivers a suitably ominous but retrained score. The performances are good throughout with the young Janina Faye particularly noteworthy as the victim who survives not only her encounter with the paedophile but also her encounter with the judiciary.… (meer)